The New, Newer Project: Part Tres...

[njsteve]

And after driving it 75 miles or so in the past week I noticed that the car runs at 205 degrees on the temp gauge. I confirmed this with the infrared heat gun (so the gauge is actually accurate!). The temp would never rise above that, even when sitting in traffic or under throttle - very stable, just hotter than I would like.

Since the thermostat housing was leaking I decided to check the thermostat. Looks like it was the original thermostat with a Delco stamp and a 195 rating.

The unique "LS2" ID stamp on the SD455 intake, and the leaky thermostat housing:



"DELCO" on the top side:



"195" rating on the bottom side:



Since I had a spare 160 thermostat on the workbench, I threw that in, replaced the gasket and tightened everything back up. While I was there I used a little Windex and gently cleaned the area surrounding the housing. With the 160 thermostat in it, the car runs much cooler now - like 160 or so - barely hitting the first notch on the gauge on a 75 degree day today.

[njsteve]

While under the car yesterday I noticed both valve covers were leaking oil. Not wanting to open the top of the engine I looked closely at the valve cover bolts and noticed that oil was seeping out from under them. When I shut the car off I could see a little bubble of oil oozing out from underneath one of them by the main leak trail. I went to tighten it and it was barely finger tight. So, one at a time I removed each valve cover bolt, wiped it off, applied a bit of sealer on the thread and tightened them down. Hopefully that will stop the leak(s).

As you can see, the wire retainer brackets were on the engines when they were painted:



And the unique SD455 valve cover warning label:



The SD455-only oil filler cap with the PCV within it. The PCV's on the SD455s were relocated to a valve cover oil cap from the intake manifold due to the increased internal pressures in the intake valley where the regular engines have them mounted.



The stenciled hose for the PCV filler cap.

[njsteve]

Everything back together for a test drive. She sure is a "peppy" little car. Chirps second gear without trying. Definitely pulls all the way up the RPM range. The next thing on the list is to start cleaning everything by hand to get the rest of the four decades of grease and dust off.

[napa68]

Excellent Steve.......................just excellent!

Tim

[SS427]

Totally awesome. Thanks for sharing some of the photos. I see the backing plates were also painted with the wheel cylinders and bleeders in palce which I commonly see though most (including me) restore them in natural finish and natural bolts. Do you see any black paint on the rearend brake lines?

[njsteve]

Brake lines are natural. No paint on them at all.

[njsteve]

Here's another interesting thing. The hood torsion spring has a rubberized green end on it. And the radiator support is date coded.



Original A-6 compressor decal:



And date coded POA valve:



Timing/Emissions decal:



Date coded antifreeze decal:

[njsteve]

Next project is to reinstall the original 7043270 800 CFM carb. The man I bought the car from purchased an NOS 800 CFM, 17054910 service replacement SD455 carb from HO Specialties twenty years ago and installed it because he thought there was a problem with the carb. It turned out the problem was with the TCS system cutting off the advance, so he routed the vacuum advance directly to the carb and cut out the TCS system. The car ran fine then, but he never reinstalled the original carb. So I will get a carb kit and replace the needle and seat, and the accelerator pump with something that will tolerate the new ethanol blended fuels we have to put up with. Then the original carb goes back on.

Here's what's on the car now. 17054910 dated "1140" 114th day of 1980






And the original 7043270 dated "0133" 13th day of 1973:

[mockingbird812]

<span style="font-size: 20pt"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">Great</span></span> automotive archaeology Steve!</span>

[njsteve]

Thanks! One of the posters on the PY website asked about the master cylinder date code stamping. I didn't know there was one but here it is. It is stamped in tiny font on the front outlet. CS3190 is the CS master cylinder as documented on the paper tag on the retaining wire, 3190 is the 190th day of 1973.